


Come the Morning (The Once More for the Ages Remix)

by ishie



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-04-19
Updated: 2012-04-19
Packaged: 2017-11-03 23:16:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,794
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/387076
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ishie/pseuds/ishie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A lesser woman might weep for what had been lost, Catelyn thought. But she was a Tully, through and through, and she knew her duty.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Come the Morning (The Once More for the Ages Remix)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [kitrinlu](https://archiveofourown.org/users/kitrinlu/gifts).
  * Inspired by [Hope Begins in the Dark](https://archiveofourown.org/works/245498) by [kitrinlu](https://archiveofourown.org/users/kitrinlu/pseuds/kitrinlu). 



> Title from The New Pornographers' _Go Places_. 
> 
> All thanks to A <3

Soft breezes tugged at Catelyn's unbound hair, even in her rooms with the shutters closed against them. With the wind came the smell of the rivers, the familiar cool, damp scent of fish and mud and life.

So too came the sounds she knew so well: water rushing against stone and plank, chains shrieking as gates were raised and lowered, gulls crying as they wheeled through the air in search of a meal. Here was the faint murmur of voices from the lower bailey as the new day's catch was presented; there the creaking of the waterwheel so many stories below.

The heavy redwood doors of her rooms did little and less to block the smells and sounds of her childhood. The smooth stone walls grew warm in the early morning sun. The air within grew close and stifling, tightening in her lungs. She longed to cross to the windows and throw the shutters wide. 

It had long been her custom to greet each new day thus, to lean out over the edge of her balcony to seek the horizon, where the sun rose from behind the distant peaks of the Mountains of the Moon. Its light spilled across the Riverlands, the trees before her turning a bright, golden green. Catelyn felt as though she were the only person in the wide world to be treated to such a sight. As if the Seven had given it to her alone.

But it was a gift to be left untouched this morning. She had spent the night kneeling before the Mother and the Maiden, as had her own mother at Harrenhal before her. In the moonlight that spilled through the seven-pointed star above the altar, Catelyn prayed for strong healthy sons and daughters to carry her new husband's name. Playful boys and giggling girls with her own Tully coloring, bright red hair darkening to auburn as the years rushed by. Brown eyes under a dark mop of hair, sparkling with some mischief, so alike the expression she had seen half a hundred times on Brandon's face.

 _Eddard_ , she reminded herself sharply. _My lord husband's name is Eddard._

A lesser woman might weep for what had been lost, Catelyn thought. But she was a Tully, through and through, and she knew her duty. 

Now she waited. Closed away in her rooms, she was to spend what remained of her maiden's life in contemplation. Soon her maid Elen would arrive, eager to ready her for the day ahead. Elen would wash and dry her hair, brush until it shone in what light could sneak past the shutters. The bride cloak of red and blue would drape over Catelyn's shoulders, each colorful stitch lovingly done by her own hand what felt like a lifetime before. 

Catelyn would light the seven candles once more, in the grey gloom of her room. A last prayer to the Maiden for grace, and another to the Crone to guide her steps and lengthen her path, then she would emerge from her isolation to begin a new life.

Half a turn down the stair, Lysa would be doing the same in her own rooms. Catelyn felt a wild urge to rush down the steps as she had done so many times before, to steal into her sister's bed and whisper into her ear. But Lysa too had spent the night kneeling on the cold hard stone of the sept, her lips moving in the same ceaseless prayers, tears leaking slowly from the corners of her eyes. Grey-faced and exhausted, she yawned and brushed a soft kiss against Catelyn's cheek in the dark hours before dawn and asked not to be disturbed until the very last moment.

She could hardly blame Lysa. Jon Arryn seemed a good and kind man, tall and broad-shouldered, with a round, serious face and few smiles. He was a worthy husband to any girl, even one as spirited and willful as her sister. But he was old and nothing like the romantic hero Lysa had dreamed of since they were girls. No one would sing songs about this Defender of the Vale, except as a verse in someone else's tale. 

And what of Catelyn's own husband, the new Lord of Winterfell, who now stood the groom's vigil in the sept alongside his foster father? The man she would once have called good-brother, until her betrothed shook off her father's steadying hand and rode south to his death. Two years the elder, Brandon had been brown-eyed and hot-blooded where Eddard was gray-eyed and solemn. 

_Ned_ , she remembered. He had muttered it one evening as they sat in her father's solar. "No one calls me Eddard but Fath—"

"Then Ned you shall be," Catelyn agreed quickly, before the awful choked-back name could drive him away again. As though there had been a question in his voice instead of coldness and despair.

Together they had no history, no shared remembrances. No lovers' whispers or furtive moments stolen in the dark of the godswood. She knew Ned better than he knew her, but only from stories that bore little resemblance to the man who awaited her in the sept. 

And over all lay the heavy shadow of Brandon. Catelyn felt his presence between them at every moment. Saw him in the twist of Ned's mouth when Lysa shrieked with laughter across the room, in the sweep of dark hair against his brow. He was long and lean where Brandon had been sturdy and broad, but none could deny their shared blood. 

_Dark and wild we Starks are_ , Brandon had told her one evening near the start of the false spring, before he rode to join his family. He growled at her, his hands curved into claws while she giggled behind her own. Her septa sat drooping in the corner of the room, the buzz of her snores echoing off the bare walls. _The wolves of winter, they call us._

 _Even Lyanna?_ Catelyn couldn't imagine it. No matter what wild tales Brandon carried south with him, Lyanna was the daughter of a house far greater than her own, even if it was half-buried in snow and ice.

The septa jerked awake with a snort at his roar of laughter. 

_Lyanna most of all! In truth I think Ned must have given her his share..._

In the years of their betrothal, Brandon spent many a month at Riverrun. More than anyone had ever expected of the heir to the North. Her father said it was hardly surprising, no one could resist the charms of his beautiful, patient Cat. But it was the other way round entirely, to Catelyn's mind. Brandon's ready grin and sparkling eyes rivaled the sun to the girl she had been, and every hall seemed still to ring with his footsteps. Wherever she turned, another memory lingered in the air. Of his patience with her and Lysa's questions. Of his quick anger when he felt the sting of any slight, both real and imagined. Of his disbelieving laughter when little Petyr Baelish challenged him for her hand.

She loved him, it was true. But it was the fascination of a silly girl for a distant hero, a love like the fondness she felt for her uncle and her brother. For all his visits, and his tolerance of her girlish chatter, they had been too little in each other's company—and separated by years and experiences that made him seem a stranger at times, if truth were told. Catelyn expected that in the fullness of time they would find their easy affection grown into something more. That perhaps one day he would look at her with the adoration she dreamt of in her narrow maiden's bed.

But the wolf's blood that ran hot in him had extinguished that hope. Brandon rode south to challenge his king, as would his brother and her sister's new husband beside him. And Catelyn would wait, as she always had. Rising to greet the dawn, an ear kept turned to the wind for a hint of riders, an eye to the rivers for a sail.

Elen arrived in a swirl of skirts and excited chatter. Her broad face was pink with joy as she recounted all that she had seen and heard as the castle made preparations for the wedding feast. Roasted duck and sweet seedcakes for Lysa's pleasure, scallops in cream and tart baked apples for Catelyn's. Then seven courses apiece to honor the North and the Eyrie, and music and dancing. Even a mummer's troupe had made the journey, erecting a stage in the market town and lightening hearts—and purses.

Almost before she realized it, the morning had fled. Catelyn was rising from her final prayer when Edmure swept into her room. His red hair was slicked back with water, small curls popping free all over his head. A stripe of darker hair sat uneasily over his upper lip, as though still unsure it wanted to commit itself to a face so young. He was near to vibrating with impatience, no doubt ready for the feast to begin so he could drink deeply and coax a serving girl into a dark corner. Like Lysa, he was quick-tempered and indulged, but with fewer consequences to hold him to better behavior. 

Lysa was already waiting on the stair below, as impatient as Edmure to get the day done, she said. Her face was as pale as milk, dark shadows ringing her eyes. It was as almost though something had slipped into her sister's skin in the night and drained her of all her vibrance. Even her hair seemed duller and brittle. Catelyn hooked her arm through her sister's and together they led the escort down through the keep and out into the gardens.

Their uncle, the Blackfish, met them at the crystal gate. He gathered them both in his arms and spun them in the air, just as he had done since their heads scarcely met his knee. Lord Hoster stood behind him, his customary look of disapproval melting into melancholy once the Blackfish set her down. He brushed a kiss across her brow, his thick beard tickling her skin. "Your mother is here with you today," he whispered before releasing her and turning to Lysa.

Across the stone courtyard, Catelyn could see the tall form of Jon Arryn standing before the wide arched doors of the sept. Next to him was Ned, hands clasped behind him and neck red above the high, stiff collar of his new doublet.

The ceremony passed in a blur, words mouthed in the right places, she hoped. The new pearl-grey cloak Ned fastened about her shoulders was heavy and scratched her skin through the thin fabric of her gown. The septon's crystal broke the sunlight into a thousand rainbow-colored points, and Ned's lips were warm against hers before they turned away from the altar. 

Lysa seemed paler than ever, a stiff smile painted on her face. The maiden's vigil had drained her more than Catelyn had realized. Perhaps if there were time, she could rest in her own bed before the feast? But the rooms in which they had spent their girlhood were no longer theirs, no more than their father's name.

The new Lord and Lady Arryn led the party deeper into the gardens, where servants waited with wine and fruits. Hoster Tully fell heavily to one knee to pledge himself and his banners to House Baratheon before a hundred and a half witnesses.

Catelyn watched with her pulse pounding in her ears. When the gathered crowd erupted into cheers, she took Ned's hand in her own, ignoring his start of surprise, and drew him back into the soft shadows.

"My lady, the feast—"

"Catelyn," she corrected. "Only those to whom I'm not wed need call me _my lady_."

It was clumsily done, the jest drying in her mouth so that her voice came out almost in a croak. But Ned's eyes creased with good humor, softening the sharp lines of his face, and her heart fluttered for an instant.

"Catelyn, then," he said. "Where are you taking me?"

She waited until they were through the gate at the bottom of her mother's garden before she answered. Pausing beside the smallest of the streams that wended through Riverrun's godswood, she dropped his hand and stood before him, tall and straight as the redwoods around them. The heavy grey cloak at her shoulders brushed against the thick carpet of moss that covered the ground. Somewhere nearby, a waxwing trilled for its mate.

"You've said my words in the light of the Seven." She stopped, casting desperately for the explanation she practiced in the dark of her rooms. But all her pretty words had fled with the wind that stole through the keep.

"I would have us say yours as well," she said at last. 

Catelyn turned quickly away before Ned could respond. A few dozen steps around the bend of the stream brought them to the small clearing around the slender weirwood that spread its red hands far above their heads. Its carved face was as still and pale as stone. The scarlet sap of its weeping eyes and thin mouth had always frightened her, though she knew there was nothing to fear here in her father's castle. Still, a chill swept down the back of her neck.

She shook it off and sank to her knees, letting the heavy weight of the cloak settle on the back of her bent legs.

"You will have to guide me," she told Ned when he knelt beside her. "The septon knows nothing of your gods, and Maester Luwin only a little more."

"There is little to know." Ned's voice was pitched lower than she was accustomed to hearing it. "Do you consent to be my wife, Catelyn Tully? Before the Old Gods, do you pledge your life to mine?"

He took her hand in his. "Here is where you say yes."

His face was so solemn, so serious, so unlike the warmth she hoped for that she swallowed the impulse to make a jest.

"I pledge my life to yours."

All other smiles he had given in her sight paled before the one that wreathed his narrow face now. "Exactly right. And I pledge my life to yours, Catelyn _Stark_. In the sight of the Old Gods, and in the words of the First Men, I will be the rock upon which you build your life. I will be the roof that shelters you when winter comes, as you shall do for me."

Catelyn's throat grew thick with some emotion she could not name. Instead, she squeezed Ned's hand in hers and nodded.

"Your words are beautiful," she told him when she could speak again. "Do they really come from the First Men?"

"I have no idea." He chuckled, a pinkness climbing into his cheeks. "Most believe so, but I think perhaps they were dreamt up by some starry-eyed singer. Edderion is the first to have used them, or so I have read. But I find that difficult to believe."

Ned couldn't have surprised her more if he had suddenly danced naked through the trees. He seemed such a cold man, barely older than she but already hardened by battle and loss. Yet here he knelt with her among the trees, telling stories of the King of Winter they called the Bridegroom.

When her betrothal to Brandon was first announced, Catelyn wheedled and pleaded until old Maester Wyndal consented to ask Winterfell to lend her a history of the land her sons would someday inherit. Her attention flagged before she learned much, but Edderion was a familiar name in some of the oldest tales. Married seven times, each bride was chosen for alliance and each union cut short by tragedy; his legacy south of the Neck was little more than a song for young ladies to weep prettily over and suitors to pledge not to follow.

Perhaps it was different in the North, where the winters were heavy and long and even the summers could bring snow. Surely in such a dark and cold place, there was warmth to be found and cherished and clung to. And if there was none to be found, perhaps she could carry it north with her.

Soon, Ned would lead a host south to war. If the gods were good, he would leave behind him a son growing in her belly. An heir to the North, the next Stark in Winterfell, the first of many children who would fill his keep with love and laughter enough to melt even his heart when he returned.

And if the gods were kind, she would not have long to wait.


End file.
